Important Announcement

9 May, 2020 at 11:36 AM

Through August 2020, Boston University has moved to remote teaching and learning, canceled on-campus activities, and minimized lab research activities. For more information, visit our COVID-19 website.

I have a lot of great memories of Derek Walcott but the one abiding memory, the one that always returns, is when he pulled me aside one day after our first class together. He had just heard an early draft of a play I was writing and he asked if I would like to sit in on his poetry seminars too. I said, "Yes, of course." But what it really meant to me was that this master had seen something in my work that required his attention; that this green behind ears newbie had the stuff to become a writer. It was the recognition that gave me the confidence to be the writer I am today.

The play I was working on that day was The Lepers of Baile Baiste. And below is a picture of myself and Derek and Ciaran Crawford on the opening night of that play in New York City three years after that first class. I am what I am because of Derek Walcott.

New York City, 2004: Ciaran Crawford, Ronan Noone, and Derek Walcott on opening night of The Lepers of Baile Baiste.

Review from The Boston Globe

You can’t accuse Augustine Early, the bottom-feeding tabloid reporter in Ronan Noone’s “The Atheist,’’ of concealing her unscrupulous intentions. “My rules: Do whatever you have to do to get the story,’’ she proclaims.

Augustine certainly follows that amoral credo in an absorbingly spiky production of Noone’s 2006 solo play at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, directed and designed by the playwright himself.

“So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here—not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.”

—Hunter S. Thompson

1 - It would be foolish to think that objectivity is still a foundation on which our media is built. It is not. A newspaper, a TV channel, a radio station, and a website—whether blatantly obvious or mildly subtle—is ultimately linked to a political party and/or a specific political ideology. If you associate that ideology with a personal belief that mirrors and outlines your own ethical slant, it is likely you will buy that paper and find solace, faith, and a linked community upon which your safety and anger act as both offense and defense against those whose beliefs are often the exact opposite. And for those whose beliefs are the opposite, they will read and agree with the paper and TV channel that sings to their choir. It seems there is little room for compromise these days, particularly as the news is repeated in a cyclical stream leaving the viewer riddled with anxiety and fearful of the other side.

2 - When I was growing up, the headline on the front page was usually a clever, reductive and self-satisfied bon mot that explained a story in a word, like “Gotcha,” which is how the Sun newspaper in Britain announced the sinking of an Argentinian ship during the Falklands war. It is that bawdy, xenophobic, nationalistic attitude and irreverent language that gave voice to Augustine Early. It is a familiar voice again. Back then it was the men, Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell who published those papers. Today it is still men: Murdoch, Henry, Bezos, Karsh, Slim. (I would also count Peter Thiel in there too because he had the money to shut down a media group because of a sex tape.) More